A change of perspective

[lorgerol]

Many people have complained since Patch 1 and its adjusts about the things that have gotten harder/impossible and that they are finding the game unenjoyable. This post is not going to be about saying they are not right: the game IS different now. Nor am I going to try to convince anyone that they must like the changes, you are free to have your opinion. What I would like to offer is to cast things in a slightly new light, and maybe suggest how to do things differently, so that it's not so bad. Without going into particular tips, here are some general points I have noticed where a change of perspective helped me to adjust. Feel free to pick them apart.

Difference in offensive/affliction skill levels makes afflicts useless
Before Patch 1, afflictions had virtually no failure rates nor did mobs ever resist. Fear 1 was just as good as Fear 4. It was clear that this is not intended, and lot of people knew this will change, but people went along and enjoyed the benefits whilst it lasted. The unfortunate effect of this is that people came to expect that a low level affliction skill can be used well with a high level offensive elemental skill.

After Patch 1, this has an effect on both soloing and grouping. For solo mages, it hit hard when people found that e.g. fear-kiting is hard to impossible. The fundamental concern is with a scenario where a mage has say 30 levels in affliction and 80 in elemental magic. A high level mob which gives enough XP for the elemental branch will resist level 30 afflictions, and those mobs which are low enough to be afflicted give hardly any XP when killed using elemental magic.

The perspective change I suggest here is this. I think the current unforunate situation is largely due to the skewed development of characters under the old system. I beleive that if characters were started under the new system, and care was taken to level affliction and elemental magic equally, it wouldn't be a problem. I know it doesn't help current characters much, but try and level your affliction until it's on par with elemental magic and things will be better.

For grouping, the complaint is that it's much harder for a mage now as their afflicts are useless in a scenario where their offensive magic is useful. The perspective change here is this. In all other areas of the game, you are happy to differentiate between your levels and find groups according to your level, why can't you do that here too? You are used to saying that you are lvl 50 melee, lvl 30 heal, lvl 80 offensive and finding a group accordingly. From now on you have to differentiate between your afflicting and offensive levels. Your role is more specialised now: you either enter combat as an afflictor, or as an offensive mage, but not both.

I can't kill mobs for 3K XP now
This hurts. It hurts everyone, not just those who dislike the patch. But it doesn't have to hurt that much with the right perspective. Think about weapon damage. What matters is not the max damage of a weapon, but the damage per second. Same with XP, what matter is XP-over-time, not the total XP you get from a single kill.

It is true that finding something that you can kill for 3K XP now is nearly impossible, especially if you solo. However one fortunate side effect of the patch is that combat lasts a lot shorter now! (It's a separate topic entirely what effect this has on fighting skills to pick) What this means is that killing mobs for 1K XP is not so bad, if you can do it fast enough. Just to mention an example, when I solo magic, thanks to the much lower HP mobs have and the increased power of offensive spells, I can rack up three kills for 1K XP about as fast as I could do one kill for 3K XP. If anything, I found that it is slightly quicker now.
And remember, 950 XP is almost equal to 1000 XP, even if it's only three digits.

Go and try it, how hard do you find it to kill three mobs for 950 XP each?

Mobs are too high/low
This is somewhat related to the XP issue. I have seen complaints about a mob being either too hard to kill, or not giving enough XP. I think that this is caused by people having gotten used to being able to kill almost everything in sight. Since the patch, you have to be lot more careful about knowing exactly how strong the different mobs are, and have to pick the exact right one for you. Yes, this is a bother. But it's not impossible, and in fact it can even be interesting as it makes you learn about the different animals in the land. It's just a new part of the game now. I found that at many levels there is one or two mobs that are just right.
Vigilant Izam giving too little XP, Scary Izam too hard? Kill the Hungry Izams that are in-between, with relative ease for 1.4K XP each.

Atys is a dynamic world
Change is by and large good. Change keeps the game interesting. To me change means new things to learn, new things to discover. What would you say if one day you wake up and they replaced all mobs entirely with a whole new set? Would you cry out in pain, or would you enjoy being back those moments of initial thrill and discovery that you experienced when you first entered Atys? For me, it's the latter. This, as long as the game is not "harder", just different.

[pcheez]

yet another post summing up the changes and offering a good perspective to look at the patch from. Precise and crisp, and i hope that in one of those atys changing patches, they will either remove bolobis, or make them aggro,really... aggro ....

[sprite]

Gratz on the most sensible thread of the day imho, I do disagree with one thing however;

I can't kill mobs for 3K XP now

I managed it in a group at least 5 times. I posted the details in the "tuning done to magic" thread in case you want to see.

[lorgerol]

Gratz on the most sensible thread of the day imho, I do disagree with one thing however;

I managed it in a group at least 5 times. I posted the details in the "tuning done to magic" thread in case you want to see.

Ok I will have a look, I am rather interested. However I was mostly referring to solo play, I am sorry if that wasn't clear enough. Groups can get 3K XP, solo not that much.

[keriann]

I do solo mostly and I find the new patch total crap. please refer to the 45 other explainative and semi decent posts I made around the various threads it's all explained there.

[desolis]

Gratz on the most sensible thread of the day imho, I do disagree with one thing however;

I managed it in a group at least 5 times. I posted the details in the "tuning done to magic" thread in case you want to see.

i can solo vig kizoars for 2.5k xp lvl 50is off magi a bit risky though if i get a couple of resits but i worked of another 150k dp solo last night